By Kimberly Dinwiddie
When most teenagers get their first job, the feeling of freedom and independence is exciting and memorable, although often times the job itself is less exciting. For 16-year-old Lovie Sanders this is not the case.
“This is my first job and I am ecstatic about it,” shared Sanders, whose new job is to guide [...]
Tomorrow’s area plantings will be nothing short of spectacular.
Both programs will be operating at three simultaneous plantings with all the intangible elements working together: a great weather forecast; celebrity speakers; high-profile planting locations; and the typical laundry list of giving back to the community with a little exercise and free food thrown in.
The Neighborhood Trees [...]
There are 14 Friends of Trees plantings remaining this season, from this Saturday through April 10.
As of Feb. 26, thanks to volunteers, donors, partners and sponsors, Friends of Trees has planted 11,310 trees and shrubs in the Portland Metropolitan area. That equates to over 386,000 trees and shrubs in 20 years!
A staggering tree tally that [...]
By Elizabeth Craig
Planting trees and shrubs along the I-205 Multi-Use Path on a cold and windy Saturday morning, 19-year-old Antonio Askew thinks about the future.
“Like if I have kids, I can tell them, ‘Hey, I helped with that,’” said Askew as he pointed to freshly planted trees along the path.
Askew is a graduate of Portland [...]
The majority of staffers at Friends of Trees commute by bike. And with the growing popularity of the Plant by Bike plantings, Friends of Trees was forced to address a serious issue for some planting sites: bike locking locales.
Especially for the Green Space Initiative plantings along the I-205 Multi-Use Path, where convenient places to lock [...]
Tags: bike, I-205, planting, volunteering
As usual, the multimedia team at Portland General Electric continues to create five-star content.
Similar to the ‘History of Trees in Portland‘ video they produced in the 1990s, this video provides context for the three-year partnership between Friends of Trees, Metro and ODOT, which is planting thousands of trees along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.
This video was [...]
The Neighborhood Trees (NT) program plants large street and yard trees in various Portland-metro urban areas. With proper care, large stock trees have a great survivability rate and are able to quickly impact their environmental.
While trucks are usually required for NT plantings, this Jan. 23 planting in Southeast Portland shows how three Plant by Bike [...]
Tags: I-205, Metro, ODOT, planting, slideshow, street trees, volunteering, yard trees
This year, love each other and the Earth by giving Friends of Trees Gift Trees for Valentine’s Day.
For a donation of just $35, Friends of Trees will plant a young native tree in honor of a loved one and send a gift acknowledgement card in their name. It’s a great cause and [...]
Tags: Audubon, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, I-205, Metro
Thanks to its two programs (Neighborhood Trees and Green Space Initiative), Friends of Trees has already planted 5,440 trees and shrubs this planting season. The same planting season that started Sept. 26.
With 32 plantings left, there is still plenty of time to roll up the sleeves and contribute to cleaning our communal air and water, [...]
A new report made available today cites “strong evidence” that exposure to traffic can produce new cases of asthma and heart ailments, reports The New York Times.
An excerpt from the story:
Exhaust from cars and trucks exacerbates asthma in children and may cause new cases as well as other respiratory illnesses and heart problems resulting in [...]
About 75 volunteers and community members gathered Saturday to plant over 160 trees with Friends of Trees via its Green Space Initiative (GSI) program.
The ceremonial planting—special dignitary shovels included—was the official start of a three-year project to plant along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.
Special representatives from the Oregon Department of Transportation, Metro and other elected officials [...]
Tags: canopy, I-205, Metro, ODOT, planting, runoff, shade, Verde, video
The Environmental Protection Agency moved today to enact stricter laws against smog-creating pollutants, reports The New York Times.
A snippet:
The agency is also proposing a secondary standard that will vary with the seasons to protect plants and trees from repeated exposure.
The agency estimated that complying with the new standard will cost $19 billion to $90 billion [...]
Friends of Trees has 12 plantings in the month of January, five for Green Space Initiative and seven for Neighborhood Trees. Search our online calendar for one near you and help us get those trees in the ground! Walk-in volunteers are always welcome but remember to dress appropriately. Gloves, tools, and coffee and donuts are [...]
Friends of Trees is only a few weeks into its I-205 multi-use path partnership with Metro and ODOT, and already there is an uproar.
News posts on the bike forum BikePortland.org announcing the plantings and later a follow-up have garnered over 60 comments so far, some of the confrontational sort. More comments from the bike community [...]
Friends of Trees and its Green Space Initiative (GSI) program officially started planting along the I-205 multi-use path Saturday.
Thirty volunteers arrived at SE 94th and Yamhill to plant 100 trees the week before Christmas, successfully kicking off this three-year partnership between Friends of Trees, Metro and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). The larger plantings [...]
A biking geophysicist at Western Washington University is studying the effect street trees have on reducing the amount of harmful particles in the air, reports The Olympian.
In an interview with Friends of Trees, Bernard Housen described how he has found urban street trees to be good monitors of airborne pollutants, because of their ability to [...]
Tags: carbon, I-205, Metro, ODOT, street trees
It has been four months since Metro unanimously approved the largest capital grant in its history to plant more than 2,000 trees along the I-205 multi-use path.
Now the planting sites are secure.
This three-year partnership, which involves Friends of Trees, Metro and ODOT, is worth over $400,000 and stems from the 2006 voter-approved measure 26-80, also [...]
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Foundation Conference: Nov. 9
Providing insight on high-level contract negotiations, two architects of the I-205 tree planting project gave their creation story for a packed session at the National Arbor Day Conference.
Scott Fogarty, executive director of Friends of Trees, described the target corridor as an “environmental justice problem” because [...]
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Foundation Conference: Nov. 9
Calling Portland “an island in a sea of federal land,” Metro Regional Council President David Bragdon opened the conference with his introduction of Intertwine and stressing partnerships like the one with Friends of Trees.
“The public wants to enjoy the outdoors without regard to who owns [...]
Tags: Arbor Day '09, I-205, Metro, ODOT
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Conference: Nov. 8
What once was a grassy slope opposite I-205 is now home to 30 trees, courtesy of a pre-conference service project put on by Friends of Trees and Alliance for Community Trees (ACT).
Early arrivers for the 2009 Partners in Community Forestry conference took an eco-shuttle from their [...]
Tags: ACT, Arbor Day '09, Douglas Fir, I-205, maple, Metro, oak, ODOT, pine
It’s official, Friends of Trees is coming to I-205!
With their unanimous council vote, Metro awarded Friends of Trees the largest capital grant in its history yesterday to plant trees along the interstate, between the Columbia River and Gladstone. Partnering in the three-year, $415,436 grant is the Oregon Department of Transportation, which owns and maintains the [...]